On "gray areas" and learning life's lessons...

It was another one of those ah-ha moments as a mom. That's what I had this week. All week long, I had been wracking my brain, trying to figure out a problem with my six-year-old. You see, Wildcat is a great kid. He loves to have fun (as you saw from our previous post of silly pictures) and he has a lot of friends. But, this week, after watching him come off the school bus every day with a dejected look and a story of someone who had done something to him, I realized something. My Wildcat was suffering from the "victim" syndrome. He went through his days expecting to be someone's victim, rather than enjoying himself.

How did he get this way? What made him have this outlook in life? Well, after a lot of thought, the answer came to me quite clearly. Just like the old anti-drug commercial, I could answer this one with, "He learned it by watching me."

I do not walk through every day upset over something someone has done to me, but I do have my days, and I do have my share of whining moments where I feel no one really understands me. Yes, I can play the martyr quite well. And, it is not something I really like in myself. It is something I have tried to change.

My son, in particular, has a lot of problems with a classmate who happens to also live on our street. The boy, who I previously named "Faucet Boy" on this blog, is either hot or cold with my son. He is either trying to get in good graces and win him back as a friend--calling to ask if they can play each day, or he's quietly muttering hateful things in his ear. "You're a loser" and "I hate you" are among the arsenal of verbal barbs he throws at my son, just when Wildcat has opened up and accepted him back again.

This drives me absolutely crazy. I have tried teaching my son to love and forgive people when they are ugly. That is a very important message I want him to have in his life. But, at what point do you teach them about that gray area between forgiving another person and avoiding becoming someone else's punching bag for life?

A six-year-old does not yet understand gray areas. So, Wildcat forgives this boy, again and again. And, he gets hurt repeatedly because of this. Because the minute Wildcat forgives, Faucet Boy senses his heart opening and that is when he levels the blows against him. Witnessing this repeated behavior, as a parent, is very painful and difficult. In these moments, you want to tell your child to forget all of those lessons of love and forgiveness, and just go beat the ever-loving crap out of the little pipsqueak!

I am sure this is how my own mother felt for so many years. You see, I had a "Faucet Girl" in my life as well. My elementary and middle school years with this girl were spend either in moments of happiness as "best friends forever," or in moments of tears, wondering how my best friend could be so mean to me. Ann, I'll call her, was one of those two extremes. When my faucet girl was on "hot" she was a delight to know. I had more fun with her than anyone really. But, when she was on "cold," she could make my life miserable. She loved to gang up on me, ridicule and embarass me, and tell any secrets I'd shared with her. I never understood it. I knew things about her that she would never want others to know, and I never uttered a word.

Looking back as an adult, I wish I would have told someone. I did, in fact, witness physical abuse going on in her house by her father. But, when you are young, you don't know about gray areas and when someone crosses them. You don't know that when you see someone else's father grab them by their hair for smarting off and drag them into another room, that were, in fact, getting beaten. You don't realize that all of those times your friend talks of running away for another life, she has scary reason to run. And, knowing this now, I understand a lot more why Ann had her mean-streak.

But, when you are growing up, all you know is that last weekend Ann was your best friend. Last weekend you spent the night with her out on her farm. You both played inventors, coming up with all sorts of amazing things, and then fell asleep that night outside in your sleeping bags on her trampoline, listening to the owls sing and watching the stars twinkling above you. So, why this week was she sitting behind you, mocking and imitating you so others would laugh? Why would she treat you so hatefully, just because you beat her on a chair test in band and finally made it to the first row of flutes--something you never thought you could do. A real friend would be happy for you, right?

My mother hated Ann. Yet, she still let me play with her. I remember how mad she would get when I'd be hurt again by Ann. I got to where I didn't even tell her about it. It went on so often over my early school years that I know my Mom must have felt just as helpless as I do today with my son. She must have wanted me to stand up for myself and walk away, never allowing this person to be my friend again, just as I wish my son would do to his hateful friend.

These are the hard moments as a parent, when you watch a child in pain and yet feel helpless to stop it. You must watch your child repeatedly forgive and get hurt again, until they finally learn their life lessons. And, that's exactly what my mother had to do with me.

It wasn't until high school that Faucet Girl Ann got her come-uppance. By our senior year, her wild partying ways had helped earn her a really awful reputation. No one wanted to "play" with her anymore. We ran in completely different circles during our high school years. Early on, she had quit sports and the band to chase after an older boyfriend with a penchant for smoking pot, while I'd stayed in both and found my own friends and boyfriends along the way. By our senior year, she had broken up with the pothead. She'd had some sort of epiphany, I suspect, because she rejoined the band and was suddenly around, trying to make friends again. And, inch-by-inch, I started to let her in again.

We shared a science class our senior year that was filled with all of my favorite friends. Ann was the outsider in this group, having been dropped by these people long ago. But, slowly, with my help, she started to be accepted back into the group. And, then it happened. Ann's faucet switched to cold one day and she took an key moment to make fun of me and get a laugh at my expense. As I sat there, blood boiling not at what she'd said but at the years I'd withstood her behavior, I knew there was but one thing I could do. I reached deep into my memory and I came up with one major insecurity that Ann had shared with me all those years ago, about her face. Something she'd told me in confidence, in tears even, when we were in middle school. And, I triumphantly blurted it out. "Oh yeah, Ann? Well, at least I don't have a HORSE MOUTH!"

The kids in the room giggled at the silly comeback. It made no sense to them, I know. It sounded so, so, elementary school, really. But, I watched as the color washed right out of Ann's mean face. And when our eyes met, they exchanged an understanding. Ann knew that she would never ever be able to mistreat me again. After that day, she went on her merry way and never messed with me again. We even ended up going to the same college and remained distantly friendly, but never associated much with one another again.

And, as I sit here, I know that my messages of "Live your life to be happy, and forget the rest" to my son will eventually sink in. Eventually, he will have his moment of clarity, as I did with hateful Ann. I just hope he doesn't have to wait as many years as I did to finally figure it out!